Glen Mashinini Declares 2021 Municipal Polls ‘Free And Fair’

THE Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) chairperson Glen Mashinini has declared the local government elections, in which 12.3 million people voted, was ‘free and fair’.

The sixth local government elections were contested by a record 325 political parties and over 95 000 candidates, of whom over 1 500 were independent candidates.

Addressing political leaders, including President Cyril Ramaphosa, at the announcement of the results in Pretoria, Mashinini said the IEC was able to deliver a free and fair election despite a number of challenges it faced, including the Covid-19 pandemic, a short timeframe of just 42 days and Eskom’s power interruptions, among others.

“Despite these challenges, we achieved our innovative objectives of taking our electoral system to the next level of automation through the introduction of the voter management device, which has put paid to the possibility that there could ever be allegations double voting,” said Mashinini.

“The fact that we